Heat dissipated by electronic equipment can be critical to operation of the equipment because it can have adverse effects on the performance and reliability of the equipment. One environment where heat control is critical is a data center containing racks or cabinets of electronic equipment, such as servers, CPUs, storage, networking and communication systems.
To address the heat generated by electronic equipment in data centers, air cooling devices are used to provide a flow of cold air to the electronic equipment. Such cooling devices are typically referred to as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units. The CRAC units provide cooler air into the data center, and the racks of electronic equipment are cooled as the cooler air is drawn into the racks and over the equipment therein. The air passing over the equipment is heated by the operating equipment and exhausted out of the racks, and returns to the CRAC units.